NORFOLK, Va. - The field of 64 teams that will compete for the 2021 NCAA college baseball championship, a group which includes both Old Dominion and Norfolk State, will be announced on ESPN2 at noon ET Monday.
The 64 teams will be placed in 16 different four-team regions, with teams seeded one through four to compete in a double-elimination format. These are the 16 regional sites (with host institution/record) for the 74th annual NCAA Division I Baseball Championship:
Austin, Texas - Texas (42-15)
Columbia, South Carolina – South Carolina (33-21)
Eugene, Oregon – Oregon (37-14)
Fayetteville, Arkansas – Arkansas (46-10)
Fort Worth, Texas – TCU (39-17); through games played 5/29/2021
Gainesville, Florida – Florida (38-20)
Greenville, North Carolina – East Carolina (41-15)
Knoxville, Tennessee – Tennessee (45-16)
Lubbock, Texas – Texas Tech (36-15)
Nashville, Tennessee – Vanderbilt (40-15)
Oxford, Mississippi – Ole Miss (41-19)
Ruston, Louisiana – Louisiana Tech (40-18)
South Bend, Indiana – Notre Dame (30-11)
Stanford, California – Stanford (33-14)
Starkville, Mississippi – Mississippi St. (40-15)
Tucson, Arizona – Arizona (40-15)
Games then start with regionals and continue on to super regionals before the men's College World Series begins Saturday, June 19, at TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha.
Sunday, ODU won its first conference title since 1996 to earn its first NCAA Tournament bid since 2014. Last week, Norfolk State claimed its first-ever Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) title to earn the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. This will be the Spartans' first appearance in the Division I tournament.
Here's the complete schedule:
2021 NCAA Division I baseball tournament: Schedule
- Selection show: Noon ET on Monday, May 31, on ESPN2
- Regionals: Friday, June 4 through Monday, June 7
- Super Regionals: Friday, June 11 through Monday, June 14
- CWS Opening Celebration Day — Friday, June 18
- First day of CWS games — Saturday, June 19
- CWS Finals — Start Monday, June 28 (best out of 3)
- Final championship game — Tuesday/Wednesday, June 29/30
Vanderbilt beat Michigan 8-2 in a Game 3 to win the 2019 College World Series, the program's second national title.
Here is more on how the tournament works, courtesy of NCAA.com:
What is the difference between the Division I baseball tournament and the College World Series?
The NCAA Division I baseball tournament is a 64-team tournament that starts in May. After two rounds of play (which each consist of multiple games), there are just eight teams left. These eight teams then head to Omaha, Nebraska for the College World Series. The CWS is the culmination of the DI tournament, where the teams compete in two brackets, with the winners of each meeting in the CWS finals, a best-of-three series to decide the NCAA champion.
When did the College World Series start?
The first-ever NCAA Division I baseball tournament was in 1947, and would barely be recognized as the same tournament nowadays. The 1947 tournament featured just eight teams, which were divided into two four-team, single-elimination brackets. The two winners — California and Yale — then met in a best-of-three final in Kalamazoo, Michigan. California would go undefeated through the inaugural CWS and beat Yale to capture the first title.
How are teams selected for the NCAA Division I baseball tournament?
Since 1954, the NCAA Division I baseball tournament field has been split into two qualifying groups: The automatic berths, and the at-large selections. Since 2014, that in a typical year split sees 31 conference champions receive automatic berths, and 33 teams receive at-large bids, decided by the NCAA Division I Baseball Committee. In 2021, there are 30 automatic bids and 34 at-large bids.
